The Daily Beast Podcast - This May Have Been Tucker Carlson’s Biggest Mistake

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

It was a culmination of things that ultimately led to Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, but according to Daily Beast senior media editor Andrew Kirell, the latest guest on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast, one mistake made by Carlson stands out the most. Plus! Hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie make hilarious guesses at Tucker and former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s futures, like, say a Freaky Friday switcheroo? Then, Andy talks to Chris Geidner, Deputy Legal Affairs Editor at Grid News, who gives background on how Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas became “the bomb throwers, fire throwers on the right,” shares his take on the absence of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and predicts how the Fifth Circuit will rule on abortion drug Mifepristone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have for you today. Chris Geidner, Deputy Editor for Legal Affairs at Grid News and publisher of the Law Dork Newsletters to talk about the Supreme Court ruling on Miss Apropstein, Diane Feinstein, and what's to be done with one Clarence Thomas. Then, Andrew Correll, senior editor for The Daily Beast overseeing media coverage, joins us to talk about the surprise Monday morning ouster of Tucker Carlson from Fox News. But first, let's have some fun. Okay.

So, Danielle. Yeah. Some stuff happened today. It is Monday as we're recording this. Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News and Don Lemon is out at CNN. And MSNBC, you are on the clock. Yeah, this kind of changed the whole show. We had scripted a really tight show with a bunch of other stories and we had to throw it all

away to talk about this stuff. That was a joke for people who think we script this show really tightly. Look, I have to start by eating some crow because I said over and over again on this podcast and also in real life that I didn't think that the Dominion settlement would change anything at Fox. And very clearly, I was not right. And look, we don't know any details as we speak. We only know that he's been let go. We know that it must have been pretty sudden because he signed off on Friday saying, we'll see you on Monday. And there are reports also that he was scheduled to have a show tonight. And then all of a sudden, he wasn't. So we don't know exactly why he was fired. But I mean, I would assume it has something to do with the Dominion settlement or with all the stuff that went down

in the Dominion trial or maybe some of the things that came out, him bad-mouthing Fox executives and stuff like that in texts, who knows. But anyway, this is a long-winded way of me trying to avoid saying I was wrong. But now we come to that part. And so I have to say I was wrong, which I'm happy to do. A thing I find myself saying on this show a lot is I'll be happy to be wrong. And this is one of those cases. And I am very happy that I was wrong. So, I mean, Andy, look, I did not, you know, provide like a plate or a knife and fork for you in order to eat your crow. Because frankly, like, who the fuck knows. We live inside of the Matrix. So to be honest, I didn't think that Fox was going to do anything with regard to their number one anchor who pulls in all of their viewership. What I think is really

interesting, though, about these two firings right now. One, so according to the Washington Post, they are saying, like you had alluded to, that Carlson's comments, this is what is directly taken from the Washington Post, about Fox management, as revealed in in the Dominion case played a role and that he was not allowed back on air to say goodbye to his quote, mammoth audience. He is amassed during prime time. One of the things I think is really interesting about how Fox is framing the quote letting go of Tucker Carlson versus what is happening. And as we're talking about this, recording this right now, it is CNN and Don Lemon have two different views about how that departure happened. But I think that with Fox, what's interesting is that they

seem to be walking a fine line because they're afraid of the monster they help create, which is not only Tucker Carlson, but his whole like MAGA, you know, driven crowd. Who knows how they'll react? Who knows what they will do? So for them, it's a, oh, we parted ways and a Tucker is leaving. And as it pertains to Don Lemon and CNN, it's like he was fired. And Don himself has taken to Twitter, but, you know, a couple of minutes after the news broke on air that he was fired because I was watching CNN. And he's saying, I was terminated. No one let me know. And CNN is like, you didn't show up for the meeting.

So that was your fucking bad that you're finding out about this with the rest of the world. And what I loved about CNN was just like, oh, but Don will always be a part. of our family, it's been 17 years. And I'm like, no, he ain't. You ain't invited him back over for the holidays. You just told him to get the fuck out. Right? So maybe see you out of somebody else's employment funeral.

This is a wild day. And I will just say to folks, Mercury is in retrograde. So this is just the beginning, dear friends. This is just the beginning. The Don Lemon thing is, I mean, my personal opinion is he should have been let go a while ago. But you never know if companies are waiting to make sure they have all their ducks in a row before they do something. But he is, I mean, as you pointed out, look, Tucker Carlson was the face of Fox News.

I just, there's no other way to say that. Don Lemon ain't the face of anything. And he is in baseball, in Saber metrics terms, he is a little above a replacement level player. I mean, he's, you know, he's got some fans and whatever, but he's not all that. Tucker Carlson was all that for Fox News. And so it's a much, much bigger deal that they're letting him go. And it'll be a much, much bigger deal to see who they replace him with. Don Lemon, I think, first of all, look, I don't watch it. But from all accounts, that morning show that they had moved him to where he co-anchored was not working. It's not even like they let someone go who was killing it in the ratings or critically or anything like that. I mean, they're trying. to, in addition to getting rid of him, they're also like, well, this wasn't working out. We got to try something new. Obviously, that was not the case with Tucker Carlson, the highest rated show generally on cable news.

You know, I think either number one or number two pretty much every day. And it's going to be a bit of a big deal who they replace him with. Maybe not as big a deal as we think. I mean, I remember when Bill O'Reilly was booted from Fox. No one can replace Bill O'Reilly. And, well, you know, turned out Tucker Carlson could. That was always one of the things about Fox News, particularly under Roger Al's, was that no matter who you were, you were kind of replaceable. I thought that that had changed.

And I said as much, I think, on last Friday show, I said that I thought, you know, it had become much more of an anchor-driven network, the Tucker's, the Lorette's, the Hannity's, and that they were really the ones in charge. And that's where I apparently was wrong. It seems like Rupert must have woken up today in a mood and just been like, yeah, that's it. Because this really did seem to come out of nowhere. As you said, and as we've been saying, this is the guy at Fox News. So, I mean, Don Lemon, I'm glad he's gone. I did not like him. He was unbelievably misogynist and just a whole bunch of other things.

But Tucker Carlson being gone is, as you said, he's like a leader in Maga World. And I don't know. Who do you replace him with, Carrie Lake? I mean, it's possible. I think that the firing of Tucker is definitely obviously related to the Dominion lawsuit. But I also wonder, you know, we discovered a lot during that case as things were coming to light because Tucker Carlson also talked a lot of hot shit about Donald Trump, said that he didn't like him, said that he was bad for the country, said a whole lot of things.

So, and I'm wondering, as Donald Trump is making his rise in resurgence, and Fox had put him on ice for a bit and then have beginning to thaw their relationship with Donald Trump, we know how fucking thin-skinned he is. Does this also reflect not only what Tucker was saying with regard to Fox management, but what he was also saying about who is the presumptive, you know, frontrunner for the Republican Party in 2024? And, you know, again, this is a person who, like you're saying, and like we know, has the highest ratings. One person who was quoted in the Washington Post article, but, you know, for anonymity is keeping their name out of it, said, quote, this is major. It sends a message that even the guy with the highest ratings of all, by a long shot, doesn't get to survive this disaster. And it goes back to the fact that while I also had said 780s, million dollars is not that big a deal for a company that brings in four and a half billion dollars a year. And we were talking about this last week, whether or not insurance would cover this,

whether or not it was actually going to hit Fox where it hurts. But the idea of pulling their top rated person and then putting in whatever talking head, they put in that place, like, will it satiate the unrelenting appetite of their MAGA viewers? is what I'm wondering, or do they begin to turn the channel? Yeah, no, it's a really interesting question. And that's an interesting point, too, about Trump's resurgence and sort of DeSantis's fall. We may owe this to the fact that Ron DeSantis has been polling very poorly lately. Maybe you're right.

Maybe, you know, whoever, whether it's Rupert or whoever, has made a calculation that they need someone who's not on record saying bad things about Trump. Although, I mean, look, he just did that unbelievably groveling quote-unquote interview with Trump a week or two ago. I don't know. I really do think that he could have survived that, mainly because, as we've also talked about, I don't think anyone in Maga World really knows that he said those things because they don't follow any news organizations that actually reported that. So who knows? But it could be that it may not have been the reason for getting rid of him, but they may have decided it was safer because he didn't.

not at least even though in public he bent the knee to Trump. He didn't so much in private and that came out. So maybe they just thought, well, this makes it even easier to do this. I don't know. It's going to be, we have to imagine that stuff is going to leak and stuff is going to come out about this over the following days and weeks and months and whatever. And it's going to be really interesting to see what led up to this. And it's going to be really interesting to say if and where Tucker Carlson ends up. It's sort of hard to believe he's just going to quietly.

go away. You know, he's got his own little studio up in May. He could easily do his show from there for some other network or he may have to stoop as low as to start a podcast, Daniel. Well, the funny thing is I said on the outgoing platform Twitter that, you know, Tucker Carlson will land on his hooves as evil usually does. So I'm not really concerned about where he's going to land. And one of the things I had said was, yo, maybe, you know, he'll end up going over to one of the podcasting platforms. You know, they were famous in giving Joe Rogan $100 million and whether or not these outlets have learned their lesson in terms of putting all of their money behind white, right-wing thinkers. I don't know. But I also said, you know who seems fucking thirsty for MAGA

is CNN. So there could very well be a revolving door because, these people just never really truly go away. I mean, that's the thing. So you're right. He does have a studio up there in Maine because, you know, he doesn't like to be around the general population because he can't handle criticism. Not none of these, quote unquote, tanning testicle men can. I think it'll be interesting to see where he lands. Don Lemon, however, I think is going to have, you know, for a whole host of reasons, right? We know that Tucker Carlson will land on his hooves. Don Lemon, out black, gay man, who tends to say very misogynistic and at times, you know, just incredibly poor things on air. Where does a personality like his go?

We will see. All I know is I swear to God if they pull some freaky Friday shit and switch places. I'm telling you, it's not impossible. It's not impossible because Don Lemon, for what he said on CNN about women being out of their prime in their 40s, you know, that would have been applauded on Fox News. It would have been applauded by the women anchors that are on air there, right? Because they're so fucking just submissive to the men of that station. So, I mean, if they did that, oh, dear God.

Oh, dear God. Meanwhile, the guy that we just mentioned as maybe one of the reasons for the Tucker Carlson dismissal, he's out there doing his thing on the campaign trail. and there was a really interesting headline in the Washington Post over the weekend, or I guess maybe it was Friday. I'm going to read this headline. Their headline is Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term, colon, I am your justice, in quotes. So the reason I thought this was interesting when I saw it and I was like, we should talk about this. I think it's the first time I've seen a newspaper on the level of the Washington Post or the New York Times. actually say that he is an authoritarian.

And I would like to take a minute to applaud that. It's a little late, but under the sort of umbrella of better late than never, I am happy to see that they at least in this one instance have realized that it's okay to say things like that about a presidential candidate when it's true. And it is very true about Trump. They even go back, and this is why it was kind of funny to me, They just got around to doing this now. But they point out that he has, you know, in the past few months, he has said at both the conservative political action conference, CPAC, and when he held that little rally at Waco,

Texas, he says things like, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I mean, I don't know how much clearer you can be about seeing yourself as an authoritarian figure, if not the Lord God himself. But it was, it is just, I'm so happy to see the Washington Post run a headline like that that I thought it was important to note. Here's the thing. We've been talking about this, right, for, for months, that the dark twisted fantasy that the Republican Party has for America is so incredibly stark. But there is something to now seeing it in print with the Washington Post.

I mean, look, I called Donald Trump's election back in 2016, white supremacy's last stand, and people are like, oh, she's crazy. And then he applauds good people on both sides at a, you know, fascist white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Then he puts children in cages. Then he calls African nations shithole countries. All of these things have been happening. They happen during his presidency. And now Donald Trump has taken this hard turn into the arms of white,

evangelical Christians where he's just like, oh, I know what I'll do next post-presidency. I'll become a Messiah. And so here he is. And I think to see that quote, Andy, in print, and then to hear about the things that Donald Trump in his America would love to do, which is to turn the military that is used, you know, to fight against our enemies, to turn on its own people in the United States and be directed to fight crime. and I put that in quotes, to be directed to purge and deport immigrants, to break up gangs, which sounds like a whole lot of, as the Washington Post leads off with, quote, mandatory stop and frisk. So if you are black, if you are a person of color, if you are queer, if you are not a white, cis, straight Christian man, you are going to be living in under Donald Trump's guidelines.

you're going to be living in something worse than 1984. You're going to be living in something worse than South African apartheid, something worse than or akin to Nazi Germany, where the government, as he has said in this, and I guess it was in Waco, where he said that the government is not the answer. He said government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem. It is truly amazing how much the Republican Party has changed

since the time of Reagan. But, you know, you sit here and you listen to these things about using the military for this and using the military for that. And I know he doesn't really understand that there are laws that are supposed to curtail, if not stop that, the Posse Comitatis Act, the Interrection Act, things like that. I don't think he would care even if he knew those laws existed. And the problem is with something like that is it would then be up to, the generals and the senior military people to say, those are not lawful orders. We won't obey them.

That's not something I want this to come down to. And it's just everything he suggests is purely authoritarian. And I mean, I'm looking at quotes in this Washington Post article from people who are working on his campaign, Russ Vaught says there is a glove of power needed to beat back the administrative state or deep state. And if you're not willing to put your hand in that glove, you will fail. I know the word fascist gets thrown around a lot today, but this is, if you don't want to use Hitler, use Mussolini. I don't care. These are very, very fascist sentiments. And they've become completely normalized. And again, that's why I thought the Washington Post actually saying this is authoritarian is a great step. It's a first step, but it's a great step because all of this has become

normalized and all of this has become, you know, I sort of hate that whole Overton window thing. But I guess it does fit here. Like Trump and the GOP have shifted to a huge extreme, what is now like sort of acceptable dialogue or discourse in our politics, where we're having to sit here and debate whether or not it's okay to use the military in a domestic matter, whether it's okay to round up homeless people and put them in camps. And these are not things that should be up for debate. These should be very clearly no.

And no. And hell no and fuck no. And instead, we have to sit here. And I don't mean we on this podcast, although yes, we on this podcast, but I mean a little more in general, we have to say, no, we don't do that in America. And, you know, that's unconstitutional and that's illegal. And all these things that have lost whatever meaning or starting to lose whatever meaning they once had. And it's frightening and it's bad. They have somehow made. it part of what passes for a legitimate political discourse and more and more people, including the Washington Post and New York Times, every news outlet should be, you know, screaming in loud headlines using words like authoritarian. And I'm sorry, words like fascist. That's what this is.

That's what they want. And that's who they are. If only we taught civics. I know. This should all be chilling. And the Washington Post, it shouldn't have taken this long for them to get here. But here they are. And I just want. want folks to listen to this quote from the Waco rally last month from Donald Trump and just let it fucking marinate in you. Together we are going to finish what we started. With you at my side, we will totally obliterate the deep state. We will banish the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists and we will cast out the communists and Marxists. We will throw off the corrupt political class, we will beat the Democrats, we will route the fake news media,

we will stand up to the rhinos, we will defeat Joe Biden and every single Democrat. That is Donald Trump. That is the Republican Party. That is the America that they want, where we are at war with ourselves instead of our actual threats from abroad. I mean, as you said, that's absolutely chilling. All right, so a little bit of good news to leave you with before we close out. Goodish. Yeah, exactly. On Friday, the Supreme Court ordered a stay in the judge's decision that would have banned Mephapristo, the abortion drug. The stay has been granted through the entire appeals process, which will involve, I think the Fifth Circuit Court of

appeals is next, and then everyone knows this is going to the Supreme Court. So good in the sense that at least while the legal garbage is going on, the drug will still be available. I mean, it's bad news that all of this is still going on. At this point, there was nothing more the court could do other than stay it. So I can't be mad at the Supreme Court yet. That'll come probably when they issue a horrible ruling on this down the road. But at least they did the right thing now, and Mephyprestone will still be available for those who want it. Yeah, I think that what is interesting right now is that it took those who are supportive, you know, of bodily autonomy and repro rights by surprise that the Supreme Court decided to allow the use of Mithipipristone while the decision is being made, while the suit is

being reviewed, that most people thought that it would just side with Texas. So I don't want to, I mean, look, the Supreme Court we talk about. all the time. They corrupt as fuck. You know, they house grifters and alleged sexual assaulters. So who knows where this lands, but in terms of the legalities of the cases that are being brought by anti-choice, anti-b bodily autonomy activists, that they don't have any legal standing. So sadly, this decision will not be about who has the better case because the progressives do. It will be about, you know, what kind of mood? The grifton asked Clarence Thomas. is in who offered a dissent and I'm like, I don't want you offering dissent to shit when I can't

dissent against you. Like, that's how I feel about this Supreme Court. But we shall see. We shall see. Yeah. And it's worth noting the judge who issued this ruling, this Judge Kismarik, a Trump appointee, no surprise there. This is the first time ever that a lone judge has overruled the medical decisions of the FDA. First time ever. And this is a drug that has been in use since I think 2000. And there was absolutely no reason for this ruling other than this is a dude who is anti-choice. There are a lot of nakedly political decisions that are made by judges. We all know that. I don't think anybody with half a brain at this point believes that judges are above politics. But this has got to be. I mean, this is one of the most nakedly political rulings that I can recall.

everything he did when he wrote up his ruling, he refused to use the term fetus. Mm-hmm. Everything he did was so clearly guided by his anti-choice beliefs. This was pure politics making a judicial ruling that would have affected every woman in this country. And it is just, it is unreal that this is our system. But it is our system. And as you said, who the hell knows, you know, what's going to happen once this actually gets to the Supreme Court? But at least we know that for the present time, as this winds its way up through the chain, the drug will still be available.

And so that's my goodish news for today. Goodish. That's all we can hope for. Yep. The Supreme Court issues a stay throughout the appeals process of U.S. District Judge Matthew Casmarix ordered to remove approval of abortion drug, Mifapristone. What should the Democrats do about Clarence Thomas? And how does the status of California Senator Diane Feinstein figure into that? Here to educate us on all these issues is the self-proclaimed accurately, Law Dork, former BuzzFeed

legal editor and deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid News and current publisher of the excellent legal newsletter LawDork at LawDork.com. Chris Geithner, Chris, thanks for being here. Hey, Andy. So let's start with the SCOTUS stay of Judge Kismaric's bizarre ruling. I think everyone knows this by now, but let's start with the fact that it's a stay. It's not an overturning. So it simply means that things remain status quo while his ruling goes through appeals. Yes. The case itself, the preliminary injunction appeal of Casmeric's ruling is before the Fifth Circuit. And what had happened is that the Fifth Circuit had only issued a partial stay during the appeal. And so DOJ and Dinkgo

laboratories, the maker of Mithoprex, went up to the Supreme Court and said, no, no, no. A partial stay is not enough because that's still going to create some extreme effects. And so we want a full stay of Casmeric's ruling during the appeal. And the Supreme Court on Friday night granted that. So both Thomas and Alito dissented from this stay. Thomas did his usual give no reasons things. but Alito certainly gave some reasons, didn't he? Yeah.

And I would actually say Thomas often does give reasons in these scenarios. He will normally either join Alito's dissent or they, like, go back and forth. Can I just say, how dare you correct the host? I think it's notable that he didn't say anything because I wonder there are a couple of reasons. One, he might not have wanted to join what Alito had to say. say. Two, he might have not wanted to get into like the merits of the ruling because a lot of Alito's dissent, despite its obnoxiousness, he did sort of add this note at the end that he was like, to be clear. And despite what other people might say, this is not about my view on the merits.

This is not about my view of whether or not the FDA did the right thing here. This is just on this stay request. And it's possible. that Thomas just didn't want to be a part of that because he would go even further. But of course, it's also possible that, like, Thomas just decided that, like, if he did feel stronger than Alito, even, that, like, this wasn't the weak for him to be popping his hat out like that? Right. That's a good point.

We'll be getting in too late. Yes. Yes. Before we get to Thomas, I do have a question about Alito. He's been on the court since 2006. Has he become more of an ideological fire? brand now than he used to be. I always used to think he was one of the more, I'm only looking at the case in front of me, conservative justices, but was I just ignorant? He has always been one of the

more extreme justices. Okay. I think that part of the problem with that is that he was sort of hidden initially, one, because the conservatives were losing a lot of the vote. And also, because And Scalia. That you had Scalia there. And Scalia was sort of the face of the conservative movement. At least initially when Scalia died, Thomas had continued his sort of longstanding role of sort of only speaking through his opinions and not really speaking much at arguments. That, of course, changed during the pandemic.

When they went to all audio and they went like in order of. of seniority. And so Thomas sort of got the opportunity to go first in questioning and kind of decided he liked it. We've heard much more from him since, but in the interim, that was four years of Alito sort of, because even though Roberts might be one of the conservatives, he's not as far right as them. And also as the chief justice, it's going to be hard just due to his administrative role on the court to sort of be the fire brand. Right. Alito sort of picked that up.

And I think that what we saw was that it was Alito and Thomas for a while, with Alito being the one at arguments, who was the one speaking. At this point, you've got Alito, you've got Thomas, and you've got Gorsuch. Gorsuch, every once in a while, can surprise us. But yeah, it's sort of, especially now that Thomas is speaking up a lot, the two, of them are definitely the two furthest sort of bomb throwers, fire throwers on the light. Okay. So where does this case go from here? I know the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is the next stop. What's the time frame on that? Is it a panel? Is it on Bonk? It'll be a three-judge panel,

and we don't know who it is yet. It will not, unless the random draw of the panel happens to be the same random draw that we got for the stay request. It will not be the same panel. It will be another randomly assigned panel. And that will be May 17th will be the arguments. They scheduled them very quickly. Yeah. Wow. So the arguments will be May 17th and we could get a ruling quick. I think that the Supreme Court's decision to issue the full stay pending appeal sends a couple of messages to the Fifth Circuit. One, maybe the vote and the fact that there were only two justices willing to say that they were dissenting.

Now, we don't know what the actual vote was at the Supreme Court because you don't need to say your vote. It could have been as much as 5'4. I don't think so. I think we know that it was probably 6.3 or 7.2. But at the Fifth Circuit, they sort of might take that as a. a hint that the Supreme Court, even this Supreme Court, is questioning this case. And so look at it a little more closely than that stay panel did. But more importantly, or not more importantly,

but more functionally, the fact that the stay is in place until the Supreme Court resolves any cert petition that follows. Right. Suggests to the Fifth Circuit, since this timeline, no matter what, is going to fall into the summer break for the Supreme Court. It does sort of suggest to the Fifth Circuit, even trying to hurry this case up isn't going to lead to the Supreme Court taking it up this term. And so there's no real reason for the Fifth Circuit to move quickly. Like, even if they were going to affirm Casmeric, that ruling wouldn't go into effect now because of last Friday's stay. So I think that we'll see arguments on May 17th and the three judge panels can sort of, I mean, not take an extensive

amount of time, but can take their normal time with a majority opinion. Like, they take their vote. They make their majority opinion. If there's a dissenting opinion or a concurring opinion, they can craft that with giving them some time. It's not a like, let's turn this around in two weeks thing because we want to move this really quickly. Interesting. Any guesses as to how the Fifth Circuit will rule, or is that just basically impossible because we don't even know who's on the panel? I mean, the odds of getting a good panel for not affirming Casmeric's ruling are few and far between. Okay. This Fifth Circuit panel that we had for the stay was a bad panel for DOJ to draw, and yet it wasn't the worst. Oh, wow. Kyle Duncan and James Ho, probably the two most

reactionary conservative judges on the Fifth Circuit. Neither of them was on this panel. There were two Trump appointees on the panel, but neither of them were the two furthest right of Trump's appointees, if they can even be considered right. I regularly say that if you get a Kyle Duncan, James Ho, panel, like that's your worst case scenario if you're like reasonable. I think that, I mean,

it truly depends on who the panel is. I mean, we could get a panel that goes further than this panel did and actually says that the original 2000 approval can be reopened, which the Fifth Circuit panel suggested that at least at that preliminary stage when they were considering the stay, that they weren't willing to let happen pending appeal. So you could actually get an even more conservative ruling than the stay panel issued. Good Lord. Given the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday, if this were any normal scenario, if we weren't living in this timeline, I would say if there was a district court ruling that was

very broad and like ignored lots of precedent, granted, found standing where there shouldn't be any. And then the appellate court narrowed that. for a stay, and then the Supreme Court took that and said, no, you didn't narrow that enough. We're granting a full stay pending appeal. I would say that that's a pretty strong sign to the appeals court because likelihood of success on the merits is a part of the consideration for a stay pending appeal. And so while the Supreme Court didn't issue a ruling explaining their reasoning, They, in order to have granted a stay pending appeal, did have to find that DOJ is likely to succeed on their appeal on the merits.

And so given that, you would think that that would be a sign to the Fifth Circuit. But again, depending on the panel, they might ignore it. Yeah. Okay. I want to shift gears and talk about what I like to call the whole Clarence Thomas thing. You wrote a piece over at Law Dork saying that Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who is the chair of, of the Senate Judiciary Committee is the key person who we should be expecting to take action aimed at holding Thomas accountable for any of the ethics things that we've been hearing about

for the last several weeks. Your piece was entitled, Is Dick Durbin up to the task? Is he, Chris? Is he? It really is looking bad for him. I mean, and the thing is, at sort of at every point, people have called out questions about this. I mean, from before the, this new session of Congress, I and others have been calling them to get rid of blue slips for district court judges because of those blue slips, which is an old Senate courtesy that allows a nomination to not proceed if both home state senators don't return their blue slip, saying that they are going to allow this nomination to proceed. That was the first step. And because we still have blue slips, that means that while Biden has done a good job of putting

forward nominees, there haven't been a lot of nominees for southern states for these states that have two Republican senators. So we were starting with that from the start. But then you got this Thomas mess. And there have been this question about he's not even inviting Thomas because as he said on Meet the Press on Sunday, well, you know, I have a pretty good idea of how that would be responded to, well, make him not show up. Like, come on. Like, Dick Durbin's not new to politics. He's very old to politics. Like, you've literally got a chance to be able to say the justice accused of all of this does not want to come to the Senate to explain himself. Right. Like, why would you not take that step? Even if it's just an invitation, then we've got this secondary issue of why not

subpoena him and them talking about the fact that because Senator Feinstein has been out since February, the 1110 membership of the committee, Democrat to Republican means that it's 1010, which means that they don't have a majority, which makes it difficult to move nominations for it. There's some question. Ira Goldman, a former Senate staffer, raised that subpoenas actually. you can issue a subpoena with a proxy vote. So in theory, he's even wrong on the substance

of whether or not they could issue subpoenas without Feinstein being physically present as long as she granted her proxy. Basically, it's a whole mess. And what he's ended up is an invitation to Roberts to come. Again, not a subpoena.

And Roberts not having accepted it. And so we've got all of that. And we've got new stories coming out every day, basically, every three or four days about other questions about Clarence Thomas. Just on Monday, Zoe Tillman at Bloomberg published a story saying that while Thomas had said that he was advised that he didn't need to put these trips and hospitality on his disclosure forms because of the fact that Harling Crow, the billionaire in Dallas, who's been giving him these trips, didn't have any business before the court. So we actually found a case from 2005 where a

business that Harlan Crow had an interest in did in fact have a case before the court. The court didn't accept it. They denied cert. But that was, one, the decision that Crow's business wanted. They wanted cert denied. They didn't want the court to take up the case. And two, on the court's announcement that cert was denied, there was no note of Thomas recusing himself, which would mean that he participated in the vote. And so he participated in a vote involving one of Harling Crow's businesses and also did not disclose any of the lodging or travel or gifts that Crow had given him during that time. Yeah, I mean, look, he is definitely, as I like to say, shady a. F. But let's talk about the Feinstein of this all. I've seen a lot of top Democrats basically kind of punting on this and saying,

well, nope, it's up to her. We're not going to do anything about it. Are they going to figure out that they can't do that? I think that they're really hoping against hope that they don't need to and that she makes the decision, I thought it was interesting that in addition to, again, on Sunday, saying that the decision is in her hands, that Durbin also said that he hadn't spoken to her in weeks. I mean, he said that Schumer had, but he had not. And I think that we've got questions. Now, there is like a backup on the Senate floor for taking up nominations. And so it's not like Schumer is sitting there with floor time saying, hey, Durbin, give me some more nominees.

We're not quite at that point yet, but there are nominees that don't have Republican support. And those nominees are just sitting in committee because of that. And eventually, when we're looking at how narrow of a majority the Democrats have, while it's easy enough to say, oh, we'll do this later. I mean, who knows if something happens to some other senator after, even if you assume Feinstein comes back. Right. Like, I mean, we're still dealing with the fact that, like, there's only one vote to spare on judiciary especially. And if another judiciary committee member were to need to be absent for any reason. That would mean that there would basically be a standstill. In your piece entitled, is Dick Durbin up to the task, you subheaded it. All signs point to know,

so you aren't coy about it. But boy, it really does seem like, you know, at least from what's been going on now, that he is not the man for the job at this point in time. I mean, if we get to this May 2nd hearing and Roberts isn't there, Thomas isn't there and it just becomes this like empty seat thing and they haven't even tried to compel attendance. They haven't even like tried to compel the attendance of Harlan Crow. Like, I mean, there's just nothing going on here to really address this in the way that this time seems to require, especially given the fact that like you've got these ethics questions happening. but Thomas is voting. Like Clarence Thomas is voting on cases.

They are crafting opinions, and we're going to have decisions over the Voting Rights Act, over affirmative action, over this independent state legislature doctrine, scheme, theory, whatever you want to call it. I think that's what we talked about last time I was on.

Yes. We've got questions about the First Amendment and religious rights of groups. and the impact on civil rights laws. There's just all of these cases that are being decided. And I think it's while we can talk about the fact that the ethics questions are different from the cases before the court, I think it's also important when we talk about the ethics questions that there is a real impact of not addressing ethical questions. from justices because there's only nine of them and they vote.

And then we're stuck living with their rules. Right. Oh, man. Chris, thanks so much for being here. Head on over to law dork.com to read more about these and other important issues. Chris, you are the best. And I always love talking to you. Thanks a lot, Andy.

Have a great week. Nothing is more abnormal than the rise of the radical right. Fever Dreams is a Daily Beast podcast, taking you inside the rights push to retake power, from the MAGA Acolytes to the straight-up grifters. They recently released their 100th episode, so there's no better time to listen. Head to beast.pub slash fever dreams to check it out. Folks, Andy and I are very happy to welcome to the new abnormal, Andrew Correll, who is a senior editor at the Daily Beast overseeing media coverage, among other things.

And unfortunately, Andrew, there's no news, so I don't even know why we brought you on. Let's just jump in to the one-to-punch that cable news media got, which was, first off, Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News. And then Don Lemon is out at CNN. Let's start with the first one, which is Tucker Carlson, which has sent shockwaves across Maga World that there are actual consequences for people's actions. What do you make of the decision by Fox? And we know that we're still ruminating on this. Is it Dominion? Is it the sexual assault case? Is it a combination of, you know, calling your boss's fuckheads? I don't know. What do you think had Rupert Murdoch wake up today and say, yeah, fuck that guy? Can I just say it's a truly, truly fucking strange morning. Like, this is the Monday

morning media massacre or something. Like, it is just unbelievable on this, on this beat, there's never been a bigger newsday. And with Tucker, it's like, I don't think it's one particular thing. I think a lot of people are getting very excited to connect it to one particular thing, but it's just a combination. And we're still, obviously, we're still talking to a lot of pieces. We're trying to piece together something for our newsletter and for, you know, the Daily Beast content. I won't give away too much of what we're hearing without confirming it. But it's a combination of a lot of things. And I think you're getting a situation and you could draw a parallel between both Tucker and Don in that you have, they are, both of them individually are the biggest names at their networks.

They are the stars of the network. I don't know if Don Lemon's the face of CNN, but Tucker Carlson is the face of Fox News. They have hit their wagon to him for the last however many years. They defended him in every single controversy he's had, whether it was comments about immigration, comments about women, comments about, you name any racial minority, they've stuck with him. And now all of a sudden they're ditching him because as the biggest name there, it got to a point where he thought he's bigger than the network.

And it shows through a lot of his behavior over the last few years, but also the Dominion documents showed this guy has contempt for executives here. This guy is going to lie with a ban. and he's going to skirt up to the line on pretty much every story he can, you know, the Ray Epps thing, the guy that he's been pinning as being a double agent who caused the January 6 riots. Like that's another example of just the many ways that, you know, Tucker, I guess, from a business perspective, is maybe finally becoming a little dangerous for the Murdox and that, and, you know, for a long time, he was great for their business, you know, the, this sort of Fox News Edgelord

host was really great for their bottom line, despite losing a lot of advertisers. I mean, 26 of which he lost after the quote unquote. dirty immigrant comments. Was 26 advertisers he lost? Right. It was getting to a point where it was just my pillow ads throughout the hour. And yet he was still bringing in massive ratings. And, you know, I guess the calculation was that was good enough for the brand to retain the audience that, you know, they definitely, as we know from the Dominion documents, they were terrified of losing at any given moment. And I think now I would assume that in the minds of the Murdox, you know, they've dealt with Roger Ailes. They've dealt with Bill O'Reilly. And they've dealt with Tucker. And these are people that all

thought they were bigger than Fox News and where are they now and where is Fox News? You know, Fox News is still the leader in cable news for many reasons, unfortunately. And I guess the assumption is, you know, Tucker has caused too many headaches. It's time to dispense with him. And our audience, the core boomer audience will probably stick around because these aren't people that are like clamoring to go online and find Ben Shapiro's podcast. You know, like these are, you know, those people will stick around and continue to watch the culture war grievances regardless of who's hosting. You know, it could be some like absolutely. you know, like, charmless person, like a Ben Dominic or somebody could take over for Tucker and it

wouldn't matter. It could just be, it could be anybody. I'm just curious, Andrew, what you make. Since we recorded our main section of the podcast, there have been a couple of reports, one from Ben Smith at Semaphore and then I think the LA Times that are tying Tucker being let go and apparently Justin Wells, his EP was also let go, tying it kind of specifically or maybe specifically to the Abby Grossberg lawsuit, the gender discrimination lawsuit, I guess it is. And you know, you said you don't think it's any one thing in particular. Do you think that this was more of, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back, maybe? Maybe, you know, for me, it was like when I first saw people saying that, I was like, in the year 2023, do we think that a lawsuit about, you know, Fox News host having like

a bro culture on his team is enough to sink them when, you know, there's so much stuff that he's done in the last few years? Probably not. But it, you know, in aggregate, it definitely adds to it. And I also think people have been spreading the rumor that there are tapes of Tucker in her lawsuit, but there are no tapes of Tucker. There are tapes of other people. Could very well be Justin Wells, who is a driving force behind the sort of ideological shit posting that is Tucker Carlson. Yeah, I think it's just, in aggregate it adds to it. I honestly don't see that lawsuit being like the final straw. You know, like Bill O'Reilly, it took like six or seven, I forget the exact number, but it took a lot of sexual harassment lawsuits to get him out the door. And, you know, a lawsuit alleging that,

you know, you have a poster of Nancy Pelosi and a swims, a Photoshop photo. over in a swimsuit on the wall in your office is like, that sounds like Fox News to me. Like that sounds, you know, Andy, you and I had been in those awful things before. We know what it's like there. And that's like, yeah, it's pretty normal. Unfortunately. But I think that the thing for me that keeps standing out is that Tucker Carlson was bringing in what, three million viewers to his show a night.

He has been the number one or number two rated person. You have this Dominion case that comes down and you're saying, you know, We have, we've seen all of this before. We've seen these stories, the sexual harassment stories. One of the things that did come out in the lawsuit that Dominion had was how apparently disgusted Tucker Carlson was with Donald Trump. And we know that after the 2020 election, Fox kind of put Donald Trump on ice, but they are thawing him out.

Like as he's making his return to the stage with Waco, Texas, and even with every single one of the lawsuits or invest in. investigations looming over his head. Do you think that the combo effect also includes his feelings with regard to Donald Trump and Fox reembracing Trump post 2020? No, because, you know, recently after that all happened, Tucker said, I was taken out of context. It was a moment of heat. You know, I, I appreciate Donald Trump in his politics. And I think Tucker and Trump are closer than people, you know, even after all that, you know, Trump is an opportunist. He'll take the ally where he can. And I think Tucker will happily be a Trump booster for all eternity again, especially if it's good for his brand. So I don't, I don't see that

being the case just because these people have changed their whims so many times. It feels like every day there's another story about like Trump is attacking Fox News today. And then the next day, you know, he's clearly still watching Fox News and is obsessed with their coverage of him. It's all like K-Fob. It's all pro wrestling for these people. And Tucker can easily go back to being a Trump booster. And he, of all the people, I think, would be the one that would quickly embrace Trump publicly. It wasn't embarrassing for the network, though, to, you know, to, I think the, most embarrassing thing, among the many embarrassing things in the Dominion lawsuit was just Tucker Carlson privately saying, you know, this guy is dangerous, he's a nut. Having Tucker Carlson,

of all people, express reservations about all the things that the network was pushing is very embarrassing. But that's not the reason they would get rid of him, obviously, because, you know, the entire network was embarrassed. And the entire network was admitting behind the scenes that this was bullshit. Do you think that that, Andrew, like, is this the first head of many to roll, you think, or is this just the biggest one and then everybody else will get in line? I think there's probably more to come. I was actually shocked that this came before, like, say, a Maria Bart Romo or a Janine Piro or somebody. I don't know that they're, I don't know that their jobs are necessarily next in line,

but those are the people that overtly participated in boosting just like absolute lunacy and have never once expressed reservations about it. But I think there's definitely more heads that are going to roll. And I also think that there was definitely some tension behind the scenes between Tucker and Fox execs. like I said, as he got too big for his britches. And, you know, there are a lot of Fox execs. I won't name specific ones. But there are a lot of Fox execs who, like, are kind of like cockroaches. Like after you nuke that place, they're still going to be around. And it's like the idea of like, like, you know, they've weathered, this network has weathered Roger, Bill O'Reilly and Tucker.

And there's a lot of people that are just still going to make this place function and churn out boomer grievance content day in and day out. And it may not be as like explosive as it once was, but, you know, they'll still reliably rate. First of all, I agree with you. If I were Janine Piero or Maria Barteromo, I would be tidying up my office and getting things ready to go. But I want to shift over to Don Lemon before you go. What do you make of the timing of this? You know, he's had a bunch of things come out about him. There was a piece in variety that was extremely unflattering and sort of an open secret that he was fairly misogynist and a bunch of other bad things. But what do you make of the timing of this? Do you think they were just getting all their ducks in a row and this was something they had decided? like a month or whatever ago. Yeah, I would say so. We don't know for sure, and we're definitely, obviously, we're trying to report stuff like that out.

But, you know, the way he announced it this morning, definitely to me, having had experience with like sort of media personalities who go nuclear, you know, the way he did that was very clear to me that he got wind of something that was coming down the pike and, you know, decided to keep the power in his corner by scooping presumably the New York Times

that posted their story like two minutes after his tweet announcing that he'd been fired and nobody told him about it or whatever. So it definitely, I feel like they've been waiting for the right moment. You know, I mean, it's become clear that he was a little bit of a headache. I think Chris Lick, the CEO, said something at a recent event. I think it was a semifor event a couple weeks ago where he said like the era of cable news that made Don Lemon a star is over. And like at the time, it didn't sound like a jab at Don Lemon. It's sounded like he's saying, you know, we got to move on to not thinking about cable news as like a star-centric vehicle.

But, you know, in hindsight, it's like, yeah, okay. I think they were trying to move on. Yeah, they were trying to move on a little bit. No, because he's causing so many headaches. And also, like, anybody who's been familiar with the CNN brand for a while. And, like, I've been reporting on media, unfortunately, for like during a decade now. And it's like, you know, Tom Lemon was not well liked by a lot of people because he's very much, he thinks he's bigger than the network. He thinks he's the biggest name there.

And that's the same thing with Tucker, to be honest, too, is, you know, another person who just parades around expecting the network to bend the need of them all the time. And I think both just had enough. Well, they'll see each other both, I guess, in the unemployment line. And I, you know, I wish them all the best that they. done for the country, I wish it in return to them. We could do Tucker and Lemon, which is the Hannity and Colms in 2023. You know, it would be the great... Oh, Andrew, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Thanks so much for making the time to join us on the new abnormal. We appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Cheers. Danielle Moody? Andy Levy. Danielle, who is your fuck that guy to start off this glorious week? I mean, this week is fucking glorious.

But this story isn't. If you remember, former Minnesota officer Kimberly Potter, who was a veteran on the Minnesota police force, mistakenly mistook her gun for a taser and tragically shot and killed Dante Wright, who was pulled over for a traffic stop for, if folks remember, for having an air freshener hanging in his window and expired tags. Now, she was only convicted on two counts of manslaughter for killing this young 20-year-old, unarmed black man. And she served 16 months and has now been released. She was released at 4 a.m. on fucking Monday because people were concerned about her safety.

I'm so, let me, let me, you know, if I, if only I had the time to talk about how little I am fucking concerned for this woman's fucking safety. how you are a veteran on the force and you don't know the difference from feel from a fucking taser and a fucking gun and why the fuck you would have tased somebody for an air freshener hanging from their rearview mirror in the first goddamn place. But you know, it's America and whiteness and we know how that ends up. So she's now released and supposedly she's going to remain under supervision, whatever that looks like. You know, once again, I guess it's cops supervising cops. Right. And again, I will just say, 26 years on the force, 26 years, you're pulling people over for an air freshener hanging and a 20-year-old black man ends up dead. And this is what Dante Wright's mother said. Quote, some say I should forgive to be at peace, but how can I? I am so angry. She's going to be able to watch her kids and have kids and be able to touch them. I am always scared, I'm going to forget my son's voice. It gave us some sense of peace knowing that she would not be able to hold her sons. She has two, I can't hold my son. For that, Potter, you are my forever.

Fuck that guy for ruining this mother's life while you get to go back to yours. Yeah, that's just unreal. I mean, I guess we'll see if she gets hired by another police department, because that seems to be what happens. The trend. All the time. Just awful. So Andy, this week is starting off with the bang, my friend. Who is your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy is a legislative body. It is the Senate down in Texas, which passed a bill requiring every public school classroom to display a copy of the Ten Commandments. I sort of thought it was settled law that you can't do that, but Senate Republicans in Texas apparently are not aware of that. And the bill states that it has to be displayed, not only displayed, but displayed in a conspicuous place. And it has to be legible to a person with

average vision from anywhere in the classroom. So they are really going after this. And I would like to say, well, this is unconstitutional and will be struck down by the courts. But who am I kidding? I don't have a fucking clue if it will be. I do know that it's unconstitutional, but I also know that doesn't mean it will be struck down by the courts these days. So, no pun intended, I have very little faith that this will be struck down, but I hope it is, as it should be. And these people are, we've talked about this before. All they want is to live in a Christian They wake up every day thinking of ways that they can make America more of a theocracy and more like the countries they despise so much in the Middle East.

And it's never going to stop, apparently, and I don't like it. And so that's why they are getting a hell and hearty fuck that guy for me today, Daniel. Yeah. There is no precedent anymore, Andy. No, I know. We don't have precedent in America. So, you know, anything goes. No rainbows, but the Ten Commandment.

Yep. Love to see it. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcasts.

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